The present invention relates to meat products, including ground meat, having enhanced flavor delivery while still retaining highly desirable appearance, taste and cooking performance characteristics, and to a method of making these products.
The prior art has adopted a number of approaches to improve the acceptability of selected meat products, for example, attempts have been made to reduce the fat and cholesterol content of prepared meat products. One such approach is found in U.S. Pat. No. 3,023,104 where the desired results are obtained by simply extending conventional products through the addition of crystallite aggregates of cellulose. The cellulose is inert and so the resulting product has less of each ingredient than the natural product. U.S. Pat. No. 4,504,515, in another approach, prepares low-fat meat products by combining high levels of skimmed milk or whole milk with comminuted lean meat. A low cholesterol sausage analog of the ground meat type using egg white as the heat denaturable binder system is described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,376,134. A bacon analogue is similarly described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,143,164. U.S. Pat. No. 4,132,810 also deals with simulated bacon. U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,089,981 and 4,844,922 deal with simulated products containing gelling agents.
Other attempts have been made to prepare low fat products utilizing technology which forces meat protein to bind increased quantities of water or which entail the use of cereal protein and/or carbohydrates and other carbohydrate hydrocolloids to act as agents which bind larger quantities of water in the product. The resulting products generally have an unacceptable texture and taste, being either overly wet or mealy in nature.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,151,290 and 4,943,445 deal with edible dispersions, used as spreads, containing various gelling agents.
The reduction of fat and cholesterol, without a substantial sacrifice in the texture and flavor quality is described in commonly owned U.S. Pat. No. 4,904,496 incorporated by reference herein. In this patent, gelatin is employed with a specific emulsion system.